WTN: Sharpie

A tale of two acidic little little wines, as pointy as a Sharpie® marker.

Edi Kante, Carso, Terrano, 2004
Refosco, by any other name. Bing cherryskin red colored, with a strange flat quality to the wine that made it sit in the glass like paint in a bucket. There's a dull nose of stewed, spiced plums and whole peppercorn, a dusky quality. These carry into the flavor profile as well. Virtually no tannin to speak of, this has a sour lactic quality to the finish. Sour as all get up. 11.5% B

Domain Guion, Bourgueil, 'cuvee prestige', 2009
Bright purple colored. Fresh, only slightly ripe mulberry and plums, dusty chalky tannins, grippy and gravelly, sharp and tart. Drinks like unsweetened carbonated fizz. Surprisingly tart for such a ripe vintage, as if they picked early. 12.5% B+

I tried my best to like these wines, I really did, even going so far as to mixing them in varying proportions to see if the sum was greater than it's parts (slightly, but not really: the teran adds a little roundness to the cab franc). The Bourgueil was better the next night, so maybe it was a little too young for me. One major complaint: it wouldn't kill the producer to add a touch RESIDUAL SUGAR to the acid bath musts. Perhaps I simply had these with the wrong foods, but I had them with 3 different types of food and the result was the same. Sometimes having a nice body is not a bad thing.

You gave them both pretty good scores given your descriptions of the wines.

[David M. Bueker]

That Edi Kante wine does not sound like something one would willingly drink.

if that's a B, every student in US would love Mark as a teacher!

Hi Mark -

Thank you for the notes. Never had anything from Edi Kante before - are his wines considered to be "natural"?

I'm pretty sure that Teran/Terrano from Carso is a closely related, but distinct variety from Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, although Teran is occasionally used as a synonym for RdPR outside of Carso. Not that I have tried enough Teran/Terrano to be able to tell any difference.